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Following a workshop on their last ever show, the performers and crew exited the tent, leaving Yusuf alone to climb to the top of the rafters and savour the solitude. He vaulted and caught the trapeze, soaring, free of residue, as if he’d been baptised. Goosebumps raced along his skin with the exhilaration of reclaiming this part of his identity, and he noticed how each quirk of his personality meshed together to form a whole, how one part couldn’t exist without the other.
One day until their family would be torn apart.
He’d known the big top carried a singular type of magic from the moment he had set eyes on it. Joy wove itself into the fabric of the tent, and he wondered how he’d feel if they tore it down, whether a small fragment of the performers’ souls would be sucked into a crypt, waiting for the circus to be born again.
Something had changed in him.
Every nerve ending in his body fizzed with the anticipation of this very last performance, but it wasn’t just that. He’d recast himself over the past weeks, despite the spectre of the circus closure hanging over him. It had been a gradual process, and he couldn’t pinpoint whether his transformation had been internal or the result of a series of little impacts that had nudged him into this stronger version of himself. He’d finally figured out that in a shame culture, refusing to be shamed gave him power.
In the wake of the vigil, the performers had been heartened by an invitation to perform at this year’s Carnival of Cultures. He’d dreamed of taking part in the carnival. Even with the looming closure, it was an honour to be asked.
Doris would have been so proud.
Silberling, with all his intelligence and influence, had failed to understand that circus is free-spirited. It could never be tied down by rules. He’d tried to trap the performers; but tonight, they would break free. They’d agreed as a family that the last show would not be the usual fare. It would be distilled from the essence of who they were.
Just like immigration, circus was about reinvention, but also about staying true to traditions. Some mistook the circus for frivolity, but to Yusuf, it had always been more than that; the circus acted as a window into the dark and an escape from it. He could close his eyes and imagine himself as a maharajah wooing a princess, or an English gentleman on a country jaunt, or a migrating bird with a plume of technicolour feathers. Or he could be himself and show the strength Selim had always believed he possessed.
So the performers prepared the final fanfare, under the tutelage of Yusuf, who inspired and cajoled them into showing the losses they’d endured, the journeys they’d made, the roots that twisted out of them to bind them to their countries of origin and their new home.
Peeking through the opening curtain, Yusuf trembled to witness a full house. Perhaps his return to prayer had convinced Allah to stand by him. Extensive news coverage drove new patrons into the tent. This time, neither top-hatted Emir, nor Osman on stilts, nor pretty Esme with her sweet wares greeted the crowds. Instead, a shy, wordless Leyla–whose kitchen duties meant she had no act of her own–sold tickets to patrons, stapled to a thank you note handwritten by the circus children.
Backstage, the performers huddled together in a circle, arms cast around each other.
“Remember, this is for Doris. For our family. We’re telling our own story. A story without words. A story of resilience. One told with our bodies,” said Yusuf. “Our story can’t be understood from statistics, newspaper headlines or nightly bulletins. We’ll show the audience the darkness, but also our strength and creativity, how our self-esteem has grown, and the love that bonds us.”
They rested their heads against each other, drawing courage, then scattered to their positions.
Mere yards away, the audience proceeded into the hushed tent, only to be met with a tangible darkness. Yusuf insisted the fairy-lights remain dormant, and that Old Sayid wait until the very last spectator took their seat before striking up the house band. For this last performance, no child visitors were allowed. Even so, not a seat in the house remained empty. The sense of anticipation in the tent spiralled higher and higher, broken only by the whispers of the crowd.
In the seat once reserved for Silberling sat the Chancellor, flanked by a thrilled Imam Saeed on one side, with a nervous Simeon, newly discharged from hospital, and Leyla on the other side. The spotlight flashed over to them, and Yusuf didn’t allow himself to consider why the Chancellor might be there or what it might mean.
His heart skipped faster as he spotted Ellie, her thick red hair piled on top of her head, with a grinning, excited Isaiah beside her. Marina Schmidt had taken her place a few rows behind them, all gracious smiles and earnest nods, as if to display her regret to Berlin society, although Yusuf could have sworn her contriteness was as false as her nails.
A man in the audience punctured the silence, quoting the hashtag, which had become the rousing pro-immigrant call on social media. “Be a Doris!”
The crowd cheered.
Yusuf prayed the risk would pay off somehow.
He signalled, and the spotlight swept to Old Sayid. With a flourish of his gnarled fingers, he instructed the band to play, his giant hair out of proportion with his wizened body as he moved in time with the music. While once the circus tent had appeared to lift with every note, this time, with each beat of the bleak melody, the big top compressed so patrons turned inwards not outwards. They listened, transfixed to the poetry of the oud and sousaphone, entwined like husband and wife.
Emir stepped up to the microphone, a discombobulated head in a pool of black, designed to disorientate. “Our dear Chancellor, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Treptow Circus,” he said, twirling his moustache. “Our very last performance is a special one, in which we’ll show you where we have come from and who we are.”
He disappeared.
The spotlight shifted, capturing Zul the Clown, recognisable in his flared trousers and oversized shoes, but without his customary white clown face and rouged nose. He bowed low and deep, until his nose almost touched the sawdust, and when he righted himself, he meandered over to the Chancellor–ignoring the twitching of her security men–and reached into his sleeve to retrieve a paper flower for her. The flower glowed and bloomed from a bud to full blossom in her hands. Zul made a show of delight, then joined the Imam’s hand with the Chancellor’s to the tittering of the crowd, who craned their necks to see.
Zul skipped away to an ominous music score composed by Old Sayid. Darkness consumed the tent. The spectators fluttered with expectation, whispering to each other, still unsure of what to expect. With a clicking sound, a projector screen lit up the back of the tent, arranged by Isaiah and his technical contacts. The screen gleamed with news cuttings and documentary footage of the performers’ home lands and their reception in Germany. The snippets were brief, and in between, the screen turned black, a rhythm of binary code, all or nothing, peace and turmoil.
Najib took centre stage with his goblet drum. Najib, whose lack of compassion had been responsible for Dawud’s deportation. The lights strobed and settled high above, where Amena, Aya and Aischa balanced en pointe on a tight rope in barely-there harnesses. They skipped along it dressed in ballet shoes and white satin, as if they were children playing in the street. In swooped Esme’s peace doves to fly amongst them, and for a moment, it seemed the girls had become majestic animals of flight themselves. The lights dwindled, and the girls became mere silhouettes on the tightrope.
At ground-level, Zul leapt into an ocean-blue clown car decorated with peace emblems and daisy chains. It spluttered as he drove around the ring, punctuating Old Sayid’s dark score with sudden bangs reminiscent of the bombs that fell far away. All at once, the sousaphone wailed, like a bomb siren. Zul made no attempt at comedy. His face twisted into a grief so profound that it seeped out into the audience. Behind him, the screen displayed images of emaciated children, shell-shocked adults and parents numb with sorrow.
At Yusuf’s nod, smoke sped into the tent so that soon, the lower levels of the tent became humid and steamy. This part they’d not practiced, but it played out better than he’d imagined, and for a moment, his throat constricted as he recalled the chemical attacks and the friends he’d seen fall.
A dazzling light bathed the tent. Up above, after a heartbeat to allow for the crowd’s irises to adjust, Amena, Aya and Aischa unhooked their harnesses and leapt, catching bands of red silk. The crowd gasped as they plummeted, but deceptive strength lay in those small bodies, and they coiled the silks around their limbs and their flanks, red on white, white on red. Their routine defied gravity. Aischa launched herself at Aya, and Aya arched her back to catch her. Together they danced, a slow, sad turning and stretching in the air, helped by the smooth silk supporting their bodies. Amena twisted the silk and pirouetted, and when the next bang came from Zul’s clown car, the girls fell, hurtling earthwards into the smoke like angels suddenly human, robbed of their wings, and there could be no doubt that this was war and the silk was blood.
They stopped just short of the ground, jerking upwards, before laying on the floor.
When the smoke cleared, they lay lifeless on the floor for three heartbeats against a backdrop of crumbling Middle Eastern architecture and culture that occurred when civilisations endured crisis. The crowd held their collective breath until the girls stood.
Cheers erupted in the tent, and some members wiped away their tears.
Only the Chancellor sat still and impassive–but she stayed.
Sweat glistened on Yusuf’s skin as he absorbed the rapt faces in the stands. Part of him had feared a mass walk-out at the themes of this show, but that hadn’t transpired. His relationship with Ellie had only improved once he’d closed the distance between them; perhaps this performance would tie his circus family to the fabric of this city.
Amena, Aya and Aischa skipped out of the ring, and in rushed the twins with the magnificent blue silk that had saved Yusuf’s life. They mimicked the ocean that had carried the immigrants to their new home while the screen projected documentary footage of refugees making the journey across the ocean, of bodies washed up on beaches, of camps and poverty, aid agencies and officials in parliamentary chambers, debating over the fate of those who waited on their shores.
Next, Najib led a crew in break-dancing, and though Yusuf wished for Dawud to be here instead, for a moment their internal tensions ceased to matter. The troop filled the circus ring and split into two sides, dancing with ferocious intensity, a push and pull of policy and human need.
As the dance group exited the circus ring, Emir and Zul edged into the ring clad as a two-headed animal. Walls grew around it, made of twisting vines, an impenetrable maze. The creature stumbled around, wretched and mournful, its legs a muddle, and when the audience laughed, they did so at the woeful creature’s expense, like you might titter at a circus freak or an outsider, secretly pleased not to share the same fate.
But the road they’d travelled hadn’t been only of misery. The creature exited the ring. Old Sayid bounced and bounded, his face a picture of rapture, as the house band rocked itself into a joyous frenzy. The screen lit up with candid snaps of the circus family in the residences, and in the ring, just being themselves, practicing, performing, carrying out chores, laughing, eating and praying together. A lingering shot of a beaming Doris surrounded by her charges, with Mirjam on her lap, ended the presentation.
In came the crew to set up walls with stacked beams. Osman’s horses cantered into the ring, majestic creatures shining with health: one nut brown; the other a shimmering grey. Each wore a magnificent garland, fashioned from the flags of the refugees’ countries. At Osman’s call, four of the goats whizzed in with German flags in their mouths. The horses and goats danced together at Osman’s command, weaving lines through the sawdust, cross-crossing the ring, leaping over the beams in quick succession. The spectators cheered, delighted.
Only one act remained.
The animals filed out behind Osman, the walls fell away, and Old Sayid’s score took on a classical feel, inspired by Muwash Shah in Aleppo, but overlaid with Najib’s take on Berlin hip-hop. Deep base notes caused the ground underfoot to reverberate. A current of electricity ran through the crowd as they sensed the climax of the performance.
Yusuf, at the top of the circus tent, searched for Ellie, and when he found her, the nerves in his stomach settled. Above him, silver stars stitched into the tent flickered. He stood tall, reaching his arms up to the rafters, and arched one foot forward onto the hoop that had been secured there. Opposite him, Esme did the same. Her eyes searched for his approval and he nodded his encouragement. Their costumes mirrored each other, with the exception of the saffron yellow headscarf which adorned Esme’s head and had been secured neatly at her nape.
They jumped, each onto their own hoop, hooking their legs through, hanging like bats, swinging with the force of their bodies, balancing precariously, unafraid and defiant. Yusuf ignored the twinges in his body that hadn’t yet fully healed from his fall and the altercation with Karl. This was the pain and the cost of the life that had chosen him.
He and Esme built up their momentum, a swinging to and fro. He counted in his head, as he knew she did in hers. Partnering with someone on the trapeze engendered intimacy. Maybe they could have been something more to one another after all, if it hadn’t been for Ellie. All at once, they released their grips, hovered in the air and exchanged places. This is what refugees and acrobats did; they flirted with death because their lives demanded it. Esme leapt towards him, and he caught her in a flash of saffron and black satin.
Together, they flew.
They flew, effortlessly, to the sound of the tambourine and fiddle and Najib’s hiphop. Their bodies swished through the air, creating something from nothing. And Yusuf knew peace up there, with her life in his hands and the eyes of the world on him. His body pulsed with certainty that at this precise moment, he could manage any feat.
He released Esme, and she tumbled through the air, twisting, her arms tucked into her body. She landed in the sawdust and Yusuf leapt, finishing inches away from her. He grasped Esme’s hand and together they bowed.
After a pause, the crowd went wild.
Esme leaned into him, quivering. “I didn’t think I could do that,” she said in her own tongue.
Yusuf replied in a mix of German and Arabic, and the words meshed. “None of us ever do, until we try.”
The cheers crescendoed and Emir ran into the ring to join them. He clapped Yusuf on the back, beaming. The rest of their circus family followed: Osman, Zul, the twins, Amena, Aya and Aischa, Leyla, and Simeon from the stands. Every part of the family that had made him whole again. Only Dawud was missing. The crew filled the ring, leading in the animals: the goats, and the horses, and Esme’s doves that settled on her shoulders, cocking their heads at the hullaballoo. The children—who had not participated in the final show, but who belonged as part of the celebration—followed. Mirjam led them in, blowing soapy bubbles across the audience. The bubbles floated upwards and burst, one by one.
A myriad of foils fell from the rafters. The foils became swooping dragonflies, flitting around the tent, looping through the stands, lending their fragile light to distant corners, and finally escaping out of the exit in jubilation. Yusuf’s euphoria mixed with an aching melancholy at the thought this might be the last time, and around him, his family hugged one another, openly weeping through their smiles.
The Chancellor stood, absorbing the applause around her, and the faces in the circus ring.
Emir stroked his top hat as if it were a cat and grabbed the microphone. “Thank you for letting us make this our home,” he said, and Yusuf smarted, because as long as weapons and the ambition to own and conquer territory existed, there would also be displaced people who didn’t belong.
Old Sayid picked up his sousaphone and led the band in a jam, and soon the crowd danced in their seats, but not before the Chancellor’s team ushered her away.
A few rows back, willowy Marina stood head and shoulders above those around her, fawning at the performance, although she must have been inwardly seething. She tossed her glossy hair, and for a moment, Yusuf wished one of Esme’s doves could be trained to empty its bowels on her head. How satisfying for her to be here, to see the euphoria of this evening despite her scheming.
He didn’t want this night to end.
When he left the circus ring, Yusuf’s limbs seemed to drift of their own accord, but despite his exhaustion, he stood with the performers in a receiving line to greet the Chancellor. Imam Saeed conducted the introductions and the Chancellor smiled at them, asking meaningless questions. Her eyes shone with kindness, and when she reached Emir, she congratulated him on the home he had made for them all with no trace of hypocrisy in her voice.
To Yusuf, she said, “I enjoyed that very much. Tell me, Herr Alam, what would you do differently, if this project wasn’t constrained by the rules of the Internal Ministry?”
“That’s easy,” said Yusuf. “I’d teach classes for local children, teach them all about what we do here, the focus, the strength, the creativity. But I’d also have street troupes, where the circus branches out from the tent, into the lives of ordinary people, brightening up the day of people in nursing homes and hospitals, in schools and on street corners. We’ll send in the clowns, the musicians, the dancers and the acrobats. Community can save lives. Looking at things from different perspectives can save lives, too. It saved mine.”
She nodded. A trail of thoughts sped across her face. “Will you come and see me tomorrow?” she said.
And he dared to hope.
